Five for Friday!

WOW. This week has been really long. Welcome to SOL testing. Haven't been on here all week. But I didn't want to miss out on Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching, so here goes nothing!

We are an Success for All school. There are certainly some great things about the program, but at this time of year, myself and the kids are starting to get a bit frustrated with the same thing every day. On Wednesday, all of my fourth graders were at Jamestown and this meant that the best plan for SFA would be to do an alternative project with my fifth graders! 

Since we are reading a Wrinkle in Time right now, we are creating our own planet and then writing about it. Figuring out how to show the reader our planet in our writing instead of telling about it is certainly going to be exciting! I can't wait to see how they turn out! Here is some of our planning:

Students have to answer a bunch of questions about their planet and then have a few other things to do to complete their projects. I think the writing is really going to push them. If you want to check out the project, head on over to the TPT store and see my Wrinkle in Time Planet Creation Project!

It has really been a LONG week of SOL testing. So far this week I have tested third, fifth, and sixth grade math. Being a specialist at this time of the year is hard! I miss seeing my math kids! :( Although we can't read during testing, we can read after! During the past two days week I have managed to read two great ones! 

Today's book of choice was Wonder by R.J. Palacio

What a read! I couldn't put it down and was crying at my desk. Our county uses this as one of the fifth grade reading titles and I see why! We don't use the reading curriculum since we are an SFA school but I will definitely be assigning this as reading with my students next year. It teaches you so much!

Yesterday's choice was Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. 

This was another excellent book! A colleague had a class set in her classroom that she had never read. Our library just got it in and I couldn't put it down! What an excellent book. I read for four hours last night and stayed up way later than I should have because I had to see what Isabel's fate was. I highly recommend it and I will be getting the second book in the series, Forge from my library this weekend, AMAZING!

I am also proud of myself for getting so much done this week! At the beginning of the year I made SOL checklists to help me make sure that I covered everything with my kids. I teach 4th and 6th grade math at the same time and sometimes needing an at a glance way to make sure I was getting everything done. I wanted to go ahead and make this for the other subjects as well, but this year got away from me. I finally motivated myself this week and realized that one of my buyers on TPT is one of my sorority sisters from Radford, what a small world!

Finally, I am so very excited for this weekend! I get to enjoy some relaxation but also will be going to my Little's Bridal Shower on Sunday. I am so excited to see her and give her a gift that I believe will be quite entertaining. More about that next week! 

Now it's time for me to get back to that relaxing thing. Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! 

Happy teaching y'all!

Mathematical Monday: Blowing Bubbles to Learn About Circles

Today I am linking up with I Heart Recess  for Mathematical Monday to share one of my most favorite math activities that we do all year long! I have done this activity the past two years and I... my kids love it. My math coach told me about it last year and I now have brought it to my new school and done it with my TAG students and some of the fifth graders. It is so much fun!

 

Educators like to have pi day and to use food to study circles. I love pi day too, but many schools are changing to where you can no longer give students food. Because of this, this is a great alternate or additional activity to give your students some time to have fun with circles on a hands on way. Not only do they have a blast, but boy your desks will never be cleaner!

Materials Needed: liquid hand soap, straw for each student, measuring tapes (the ones that tailors use), a cup or measuring cup, and cleared off desks. 

I make up a bucket of the soapy solution (just some liquid soap and water (Dawn works well)) and go ahead and pour some (a small cup or measuring cup works well) on an area where all students can see so that I can model the activity. I have a straw and put it down in the middle of some suds(it is important that you water is very sudsy). You want to make sure that you are holding the straw straight up and down. Then, you should blow lightly and a large bubble will appear on the desk. Once the bubble pops, show students how to measure the diameter and how you expect them to record it. 

Once your expectations are set and students are aware of how to do it, set them off! Put a scoop of the bubble solution on each desk. They will want to spread it around and then go ahead and start trying to blow bubbles. 

This is one of my fifth graders blowing his bubble, they get really big!

Another excellent bubble blown!

 This student  is measuring her diameter, you can see the ring of suds that they measure really well int this picture!

Important Things to Remember:

1. Make sure the straw is straight up and down when you try to blow.

2. Make sure you are sticking your straw into some suds.

3. If you already have a bubble partially  blown and want to make it bigger, put the straw straight up and down on the desk and drag it over to the edge of the bubble. Once it is touching, you can start blowing to make it larger. 

4. Make sure you keep track of what side of the straw has been touching the desk and what side you have been blowing with. Nobody wants to taste the soap! 

5. If there are not many suds on the desk, they can use their hands to scoop all of the mixture back to the middle of the desk.

6. A 5 minute practice bubble blowing session (without measuring the diameter each time) is always fun a good way to make sure students are ready to go. 

I have done this activity with two fifth grade classes. Both times it has been very successful, but there are always a few students that say they can not get a bubble. For these students, I demonstrate on their desk and then take a scoop of just suds from the top of the mixture to put onto their desk. They normally get it right afterwards. It will be a hectic lesson for you, your job will be to scoop more sud mixture onto their desks and they will always be asking for it. The hard work pays off though, with an excellent lesson and a ton of fun!  After a certain amount of time (I generally give them 5 minutes of practice and 10 minutes of blow and record time), have the students clean up. I then have them do the actual calculations with the circumference formula to find the circumference of the their bubble circles. Largest circumference gets a prize! 

I definitely recommend doing this activity with your students if you study the area or circumference of circles. It's a ton of fun. Just make sure you practice a bit with the bubble mixture before the lesson.

Happy Teaching Y'all!